[URBAN NOTE] Fifteen urban links

• It has been forty years since a train derailment that threatened to unleash toxic chemicals on Mississauga resulted in a remarkably successful mass evacuation. CBC reports.
• There is a Vimy display in Kingston’s Communications and Electronics Museum. Global News reports.
• It is unsettling that the Ontario city of Hamilton reports such a high levels of hate crimes. CBC reports.
• Le Devoir shares a warning that inattention to language means that Longueuil could end up becoming as English/French bilingual as the West Island.
• VICE reports on how the dying desert town of California City is hoping for a revival based on cannabis, here</u.
• MacLean’s tells the story about how an encounter of koi with local otters in Vancouver reflects a human culture clash, too.
• SCMP looks at how planners want to use big data to make Shenzhen a “smart socialist” city, here.
• CityLab hosts an article by Andrew Kenney looking at the importance of an old map of Denver for he, a newcomer to the city.
• These photos of the recent acqua alta in Venice are heartbreaking. CityLab has them.
• JSTOR Daily tells the story of an ill-timed parade in 1918 Philadelphia that helped the Spanish flu spread throughout the city.
• The LRB Blog looks at a corner of Berlin marked by the history of German Southwest Africa.
• Guardian Cities shares a remarkable ambitious plan to remake Addis Ababa into a global city.
• Durban, in South Africa, may offer lessons for other southern African metropolises. Guardian Cities reports.
• The NYR Daily recently took a look at what happened to so completely gentrify the West Village of New York City.
• Feargus O’Sullivan at CityLab takes a look at a new documentary, If New York Was Called Angouleme. What if the site of New York City was colonized by the French in the early 16th century?

[URBAN NOTE] Six city links: Montréal, New York City, Philadelphia, Istanbul, reserves, Wellington

• La Presse notes how Montréal is placing limits on new construction, and why.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Basquiat interacted with his surroundings in New York City, using them for art.
• CityLab reports on a study of gentrification and displacement in Philadelphia.
• Guardian Cities reports on the remarkable speed with which Turkish Airlines shifted to a new airport in Istanbul.
• This article in The Conversation is entirely right about the importance of Indigenous urban reserves: Why cannot First Nations be as urbanized as other Canadians?
• Chris Fitch writes at CityLab about how, as part of a new policy, Maori placenames are being introduced (or reintroduced) into the New Zealand capital of Wellington.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: New York City, Pittsburgh, Montréal, Brande, Cork

• Bloomberg notes that, while New York City is gaining jobs, it is losing residents because of its housing crisis.
• CityLab takes a look at patterns of crime and race and violence in greater Pittsburgh.
• La Presse notes that Montréal, picking up from neighbouring Laval, has started a process of public consultations to try to come up with a common image of the metropolis’ future.
• Guardian Cities notes that fashion giant Bestseller plans on building its skyscraper headquarters, 320 metres tall, in the rural Denmark town of Brande.
• This Irish Examiner article, part of a series, considers how the Republic of Ireland’s second city of Cork can best break free from the dominance of Dublin to develop its own potential.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the good news: The Andromeda Galaxy will collide with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years, not 3.9 billion!
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that a new Chinese ground station built in Argentina has not made the promised outreach to locals, with no visitors’ centre and rumours aplenty.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog explains the importance of doing literature reviews.
• Far Outliers notes the Pakhtuns, a Muslim ethnicity of the British Raj in what is now Pakistan noteworthy for being a major source of recruits in the Indian Army.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing notes Iris Murdoch, particularly her emphasis on learning as a process of engaging with something greater on its terms.
• Gizmodo reports on how space sciences appreciate the work done by the noble rover Opportunity on Mars.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how early 20th century African-American artists have represented Haiti in the works.
• Language Hat takes note of some of the mechanisms by which linguistics can neglect the study of indigenous languages.
• Language Log takes a look at the Latin motto of the University of Pennsylvania, a source still of unintentional humour.
• Marginal Revolution takes a look at the high levels of dysfunction in Nigeria, from fighting between herders and farmers to the incapacity of the national government.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at the concept of internal exile, starting with Russia and spiraling out into the wider world.
• Peter Rukavina shares a photo of a payphone that is one of the few remaining used artifacts of old Island Tel.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper considering the demographic peculiarities of the societies of the semi-periphery as contrasted to those of the core.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the surprisingly large amount of information astronomers will be able to extract from the first image of an Earth-like exoplanet.
• Window on Eurasia notes that North Caucasians in Russia no longer stand out as having higher-than-average birth rates in Russia.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Crooked Timber takes a look at “abusive legalism”.
• D-Brief looks at unusual Type 1A supernova ASASSN-18bt, which exhibited an odd early burst of light.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on a Dutch government report that Russia has developed a new cruise missile in violation of the INF treaty.
• Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the latest thought on habitable moons.
• Far Outliers notes how Korean, Taiwanese, and Okinawan prisoners in American prisoner of war camps for Imperial Japanese soldiers distinguished themselves (or not) from their ethnic Japanese counterparts.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the metaphor of the cave in the digital era. Do data scientists truly understand the online world?
• JSTOR Daily looks at the different estimates as to the size of the legal cannabis market in Canada.
• Language Log links to a podcast that takes a look at the Philadelphia dialect of English.
• Out There makes the argument that Cubesats are perfectly suited to conducting surveys of asteroids.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the one-man show Obaaberima, performed by Tawiah Ben M’Carthy, currently playing at Buddies in Bad Times.
• Window on Eurasia notes a demographer’s argument that any future population growth in Russia will need to be driven by immigration.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Oshawa, Philadelphia, London, Pontevedra, Pyongyang

• Matt Gurney notes at Global News though the end of GM in Oshawa should have been expected, people there are still shocked.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of ten foodstuffs in Philadelphia that help explain that city.
• The Guardian explains how London has become a European centre of tuberculosis.
• CityLab suggests that pedestrianization helped the Spanish city of Pontevedra become very child-friendly.
• Guardian Cities shares some photos from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• D-Brief notes that, with the Dawn probe unresponsive, its mission to Vesta and Ceres is now over.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports that NASA is seeking commercial partners to deliver cargo to the proposed Gateway station.
• JSTOR Daily looks back to a time where chestnuts were a staple food in Appalachia.
• Language Log takes a look at prehistoric words in Eurasia for honey, in Indo-European and Old Sinitic.
• Joy Katz at the LRB Blog writes about her lived experience of the conventional Pittsburgh neighbourhood of Squirrel Hill, a perhaps unlikely scene of tragedy.
• The Map Room Blog links to an interactive map showing the Québec election results.
• Marginal Revolution links to that New York Magazine article about young people who do not vote to start a discussion.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the real dangers faced by Venezuelan refugees in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, at the start of the era of Bolsonaro.
• Window on Eurasia argues that changes to the Russian census allowing people to identify with multiple ethnicities could lead to a sharp shrinking in the numbers of minority nationalities.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Pittsburgh, Saskatoon, Atlanta, Calgary

• CityLab takes a look at how Montréal took care of the problem of an excess of raccoons in that city’s Mount Royal Park, particularly around the Camillien-Houd lookout.
• CityLab takes a look at the city-defining design of Pittsburgh-based architect Tasso Katselas.
• The Yellow Quill First Nation is setting up an urban reserve in the city of Saskatoon. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at the roots of the black art renaissance in Atlanta.
• Joe McFarland at Global News argues that, particularly with its skepticism over the 2026 Olympics, Calgary is starting to retreat into an anti-development mood.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a paper suggesting that a world without plate tectonics could support Earth-like conditions for up to five billion years.
• D-Brief notes a paper suggesting that, although geoengineering via sulfate could indeed lower global temperatures, reduced light would also hurt agriculture.
• Dead Things notes a suggestion that the Americas might have been populated through two prehistoric migration routes, through the continental interior via Beringia and along the “Kelp Route” down the Pacific North American coast.
• Peter Kaufman, writing at the Everyday Sociology Blog, shares some of the impressive murals and street art of Philadelphia and grounds them in their sociological context.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing suggests that social media, far from being a way to satisfy the need for human connection and attention in a mass society, creates a less functional solution.
• Hornet Stories reports that Turkish Radio and Television vows to remain outside of Eurovision so long as this contest includes queer performers like Conchita Wurst (and other queer themes, too, I don’t doubt).
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on a study suggesting that the oratory of Hitler actually did not swing many votes in the direction of the Nazis in the elections of Germany in 1932.
• Patricia Escarcega at Roads and Kingdoms praises the Mexican breakfast buffet restaurants of Tucson.
• Arnold Zwicky meditates on the Boules roses of the Village gay of Montréal, Swiss Chalet, and poutine.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Andrea Constand, Harry Styles, The Gay Cookbook, UCC homophobia, Brian Sims

• This older article notes the importance of the fact that Bill Cosby’s leading accuser, Andrea Costand, is lesbian. Yahoo has it.
• This them.us article explores the phenomenon of queer women finding Harry Styles concerts to be enjoyable safe spaces.
• Atlas Obscura notes a remarkable book of the mid-1960s book, Lou Rand Hogan’s The Gay Cookbook. In many ways, it was a precocious text.
• Cheri DiNovo’s suggestion that the United Church of Canada make a formal apology for past homophobia appeals to me. (I was raised in that church, incidentally.) CBC reports.
• I quite liked this Queerty interview with out Pennsylvania legislator Brian Sims, covering everything from his opinions on Cynthia Nixon’s run for New York state governor to his status as a sex symbol.